How did a Catholic bishop stop the riot of 1861? Which British monarch physically assaulted a priest in St. John’s? What ancient relics are kept at the Basilica? Did a British princess help build Newfoundland’s greatest Catholic church?

By mining Newfoundland’s history and folklore, Jack Fitzgerald answers these questions, and many more, in Hell’s Flames to Heaven’s Gate. From Newfoundland’s role as a sanctuary for the displaced immigrants of the Irish-Catholic diaspora to a Catholic Bishop’s plea to an English monarch, and from the stories of relics and cultural artifacts to the building of the magnificent Basilica-Cathedral of St. John the Baptist, Jack Fitzgerald returns to chronicle the most socially and politically powerful institution in Newfoundland history.